Roto and Roy, Helicopter Heroes is just the ticket for your emerging reader

Kids of a certain age love rhyming books. These kids are mastering the art of walking, phrasing things like a big kid, and working on not having accidents. The books are those clever, heavily illustrated ones that have the goal of making pre-k through third graders as happy as clams. Author Sherri Duskey Rinker has been accomplishing that since 2011 with her illustrated book classic, Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site. It was then turned into a juggernaut of a book series incorporating any massive vehicle that could move dirt or pick up things. Her newest series of books is Roto and Roy, the first book is Helicopter Heroes and has a can-do, positive, attitude that ages four through eight will gleefully embrace with a smile.

Big Roy Thunder pilots Roto, a slightly anthropomorphic helicopter over the deserts, mountains, and plateaus, whilst helping people and putting out fires. Roto is all helicopter but has a face that expresses some emotion as the pair go into different situations. Big Roy is everything that you’d want in an illustrated book for its main character. He’s enthusiastic, talented, prepared for his job, and loves to help.

Roto and Roy has the earmarks that older folks know do exactly the trick in illustrated books that hold young people’s attention. The illustrations in the book are by Don Tate and visually bring the helicopter and rescue action to life. The pages are outlined, with a couple of them having so much action that it spills out across its boundaries. This effect gives the artwork an illusion of movement that most young readers won’t realize, but will subconsciously provide the story with a visceral attitude of things that are happening.

This is helped by the rhyming text and the more that you, the read-aloud reader engage in the text, the better the book experience will be for those young audiences. Much like Rinker’s other illustrated works, it tells the story of a day in the life of the equipment. Whereas Roto and Roy, Helicopter Heroes differentiates itself is that it’s action-oriented. While some books in her Construction Site series have action or moments of anthropomorphic pre-k vehicle peril, that’s not the focus. In Roto and Roy it’s time for those young readers to get their imaginations engaged, and sit back to enjoy the book.

Parents and educators will appreciate that most of the words are one or two syllables, and the vast majority of them are those sight words that they’ll be learning in kindergarten or first grade. Compliment that, with the fact that kids will want to spend some alone time with Roto and Roy. This is also a book series, with Helicopter Heroes being the first adventure, and more of them coming down the book pipeline, much to the joy of emerging readers.

Roto and Roy, Helicopter Heroes is by Sherri Duskey Rinker with illustrations by Don Tate and available on Little, Brown and Company, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

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